Lesson 4. Dealing with Language of Description

Jan 29Aim: to classify the vocabulary used for description into different groups and see which aspects of creative personality are described and which are not mentioned at allMaterial: Expressions with Jonathan’s description students found in the text “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

Students were asked to work in groups and share the expressions they found. Then, they had to group the expressions according to what is described. One example was done together: “Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed” – what is described? Attitude? Character?

Each group had to put down their finding on the board.

Group name

Expression

Attitude to life

“was not eating that mattered but life”

Appearance

"bone and feathers"

The result was compared to see who identified what. Sometimes, expressions belonged to different groups.

I do not find the lesson successful. Students did not understand why they had to do it. I guess this is the problem with the challenge. Classification for the purpose of classification did not work. I was not sure how to create a context for this task.

I also failed to focus on the aspects of Jonathan described by the author: which aspects are described, which are skipped and why?

Home assignment for the next lesson was Task 8.3 from the system of tasks: Describe Jonathan but don’t use any of the vocabulary used for his description in the text. You must produce a connected text rather than separate sentences.

Comments

One is connected with different lessons making a system. I am not sure I follow the logic behind organising the lessons the way they were organised. Did students follow it? What was the teacher's logic? Why was it like this?

The second one is about pre-conditions for this task. It seems that in order to cope with the task, the students needed a model of creative personality. Did they have such a model? Judging by your your description, they didn't. They had the model of the hero's journey from which the model of a hero can probably be built. But was it? And if it was, did they connect the model of a hero with the model of creative personality?